


the half-true rhyme (almost instinct)

by InfiniteCalm



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (sadly not the 1920s you're thinking of haha), Alternate Universe - 1920s, Depression, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Hubert is a farmer, Irish Civil War Era AU, Land ownership, M/M, Michael Collins - Freeform, PTSD, Rural Setting, The Land as a metaphor, background Edeleth, cottagecore but realistic, potential lavender marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:42:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27676204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfiniteCalm/pseuds/InfiniteCalm
Summary: "He looks up to the sky to see a shadow cross it; the rooks above him, on their way to the gardens behind the Big House. There are hundreds of birds, flying low, calling out to each other. Good luck to them; last week the air was thick with the stench of smoke for miles around."After the War, Hubert is back on stolen land.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra, Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 14
Kudos: 29





	the half-true rhyme (almost instinct)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Heavy topics are discussed here, including allusions to civil war, the Irish War of Independence, Hubert's father and Edelgard's siblings being canon-typically evil/tragic. The Spanish 'Flu is also mentioned. Hubert is Going Through It, and as such, his narration is also a bit bleak. 
> 
> This isn't totally historically accurate but that's not the point, so please ignore any glaring mistakes!
> 
> Title from the Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney and An Arundel Tomb by Phillip Larkin.

Hubert watches the sun set over the islands in the faraway distance. It’s barely half-four. Around him the sky is wide, blue-green-grey. Thin clouds stretch towards the horizon. It’s quiet, for once, his own breath loud in his ears. Sometimes this view, especially when he thinks too hard about it, infuriates him. The hawthorn is a jagged silhouette, bent against the cold, wooden hands gnarled and empty. It’s not his to be enjoying. He never appreciates the beauty of it like Edelgard does; he’ll never love this place enough.

He hasn’t got enough done today, but his hands are tied. Once the light runs out, especially during these short winter days, all he can do is wait for the sun to rise up. Maybe go and sit down with Bernadetta, who does his accounts, in between her knitting and her cooking and writing whatever it is she writes. She often complains of visiting too often, of being a bad hostess, and Edelgard doesn’t always disagree with her. Then again, Edelgard’s friend Byleth is over at least as often, if not more. She’s high-up in the local ICA despite the committing the cardinal sin of being unmarried. Hubert thinks he probably knows what’s going on, when Byleth visits Edelgard. Or he hopes. Because, Jesus. Edelgard works hard enough already. She deserves the softness he sees around her eyes when Byleth’s around.

He makes his way up through the South field, noting with satisfaction the quality of the ploughing. Still perfect looking, after a few months, and enough stones got out of the ground to go and fix the wall tomorrow.

The day after that, it’ll be Christmas.

He looks up to the sky to see a shadow cross it; the rooks above him, on their way to the gardens behind the Big House. There are hundreds of birds, flying low, calling out to each other. Good luck to them; last week the air was thick with the stench of smoke for miles around. The irregulars had got to the mansion, at last. It had only been a matter of time. Hubert hasn’t been over there since, but Leonie Pinelli had said it was pretty much ruined.

The landowner’s daughter- lovely girl, by all accounts- had been crying in the courtyard. Hubert doesn’t feel too much pity for her. She hasn’t been the only one in this war to lose everything. She could join the crowds fleeing to Liverpool or London, if she were that upset.

He hadn’t asked Leonie about the gardens, actually, or the farm. Beautiful, loamy soil, there. Wasted on the cattle that grazed it.

Probably the trees are unhurt. The rooks will find something there for them after all.

He sees next-door, bright butter-yellow window shining against the evening blue. Bernadetta’s clear silhouette. Smoke chuffs out of the chimney, rising in a silent column. Fourth Christmas without Ferdinand. The roof could probably do with some work, in case the wind gets bad again; he’ll talk to Bernadetta about it when he feels able to hold a conversation.

Before he goes inside he stubs his cigarette out and watches the festive orange glow at the end of it die down.

Hubert opens the door to his own house and steps out of his boots, leaving them under the window. He raises his eyes, and sees with a jolt that the picture on the wall has changed.

“A strange enough place to be putting Collins,” He says, with as much humour as he can muster. “Good of you get a head start with the decorating.”

Edelgard turns to him and smiles. Her smiles lately have a bit of an edge to them.

“I’ve moved the Sacred Heart to the other room,” She says.

That symbolism’s pretty clumsy, even for Hubert, who has never been good at reading poetry, even when written for- or worse, about- him.

Edelgard’s standing at the sink, looking up at the darkening sky, peeling potatoes. Her eyes are red.

Hubert can give her a house with four rooms, and a decently-sized farm that he manages well. He can give her cheerful lighting, and a clean pump not too far from the house, and a chimney without too much draft. He can give her enough money to run a good household, enough money to keep her well-dressed and warm, dry, safe. He can be a friend to her. And this is all he can give. The Winter and her health have kept her away from her bike and the dances, and Byleth has been busy with the ICA and the Unions. Lately, Edelgard’s been absent. They’re hovering above themselves, unable to settle back into their routines, now that all context is changed.

  
  


“Why did you ask me to marry you?” He’d asked, after one of the worst bouts of ‘flu she’d ever had, when she spent her delirium calling for Byleth, Byleth, Byleth.

“Oh, Hubert.” She said. “It’s not like we have anywhere else to go.”

They’d leaned back together against the kitchen wall.

They had just got back from the third war he’d fought in. She has not asked him for the details of what he did in any of them; he would not give them to her if she did.

  
  


“Tea’ll be ready at six,” She says. He wants desperately to know what to say. It’s been like this for months. “Do you want to go to Bernadetta, or. I don’t know.”

“I’ll go,” He says, turning back to get his boots. “Milk the cow on the way back. Does Bernadetta want us next-door after tea?”

Edelgard lives with Bernadetta, except for she keeps the Vestra farm; she makes Hubert’s dinner and does the chores a farmer’s wife is supposed to do. They eat together, and then go to spend time with Bernadetta when she’s able. Hubert sleeps alone.

He can’t love her. Life was supposed to be more than what it is. He loves her more than anyone.

She doesn’t love him, either, he is sure. The Wedding is in March.

She drops the peeled potato into the bucket of water in the deep sink. Hubert knows from experience it is cuttingly cold, but Edelgard won’t show it, pulling her strong hand out and shaking it free of drips.

“You know, I think I would,” She says. “I’ll feed the chickens.”

The walk to Bernadetta’s is short but he has to be careful in this dark. The path is uneven.

She’s delighted to see him, but nervy, talking to him from the other end of the kitchen table and knitting with shaking hands.

“Oh, come on, Hubert, you don’t want Bernie at your Christmas. You do? You’re _sure?_ I wouldn’t want me at _my_ dinner.”

“Yes, Bernadetta. I’m _sure_.”

“Well, you’ll have to call in tomorrow during the day- don’t give me any guff about fixing up the wall, that’s a half day job at most- well, OK, for you a little more, with your – with your hands, but that leaves you plenty of time. I have to measure your arms.”

Bernadetta is from Cork, and you’d know it. How she got here is a complicated story he’s never quite managed to get out of her, but he loses the thread of her narrative every time she tries to tell him. That, or she veers off and starts recounting the latest catastrophe that awaits her as soon as she steps outside the door to get the messages or the post.

Anyway, his point is, her accent and the tempo of her speech combine to make a very- he’ll say, interesting combination. He doesn’t know anyone else who talks like she does, which is a blessing.

“I’ll be in to drop off some of Blaithín’s milk for you tomorrow,” he says. “Do you want me to boil it?”

“No, no, I’ll do it myself. I know it’s against your convictions, or whatever.” Hubert watches the blood drain from her face. “Please, Hubert, please don’t take that as an insult about your convictions! I respect your convictions, you know I do!” She pushes her palms into her face. “I meant your specific convictions about milk, please forgive me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Thank you in advance for the milk!”

“Please, Bernie, it’s all right.” Hubert sighs. “I knew what you meant even before you explained it.”

“Well! See you in a while! Let Bernie eat in peace, ha ha,” Bernadetta smiles broadly, the edges of her mouth quivering. Hubert bows to her, picks his hat off the table and leaves Bernadetta to her meal.

He’s forgotten the lamp, so he has to go back into the farmhouse. Edelgard’s in the other room, maybe retrieving more fuel for the fire. She needs to stay warm, but it’s impossible this time of year. Before he leaves for the cowshed he pokes at the stove a little, to make it easier for her to stack the coal. And then, down to Bláithín. He swings the lamp in his hand a little as he leaves the kitchen once again.

He should have lit it inside - It’s difficult to get it lighting outside with his strange hands as unresponsive to the cold as they are. How dark it is! His breath comes in clouds, even though he is no longer warm.

How far away all this is, from what he thought his life would be.

But then.

It’s not like there’s a choice. You just have to keep on putting one foot in front of the other, across the old farmyard, avoiding the uneven patches of ground, stones, the old trough. The lantern only illuminating a few paces in front of him. Hubert Vestra – in the shadows, as ever.

He feels sorry for Blaithín out here all on her own sometimes, he has to admit. But she’s a good girl, docile and sweet, happy to see him when he does come, and he tries his best to make sure she’s warm and dry. They can’t afford another cow. They have no need of another cow. He’d never get used to another cow.

The milk bucket is galvanised steel and Edelgard scrubs it obsessively every morning and evening. Hubert holds it against his hip and lifts the latch on the cow shed, humming as he does so, backing into the room to pick up the stool from behind the door. He is noisy so as not to disturb the cow by frightening her. (And of course, for no other reason).

“Who’s ready to be milked?” He asks, in his best approximation of jovial, because Blaithín is not to blame for the darkness nor the weather nor his and Edelgard’s decisions.

A small scuffing noise, and Hubert thinks _Edelgard – no – there’s a stranger – fuck!_

“I hope you’re not referring to me?” Ferdinand Von Aegir asks.

Hubert drops the bucket. It bounces off the floor with a muted clang, and Blaithín exhales gruffly. Hubert claps her flank. He stares.

_Flames_.

Ferdinand meets his eyes, and then it’s like it always is, with Ferdinand.

The magnetic lock of their gazes, the wonder of him _being_ there.

Hubert forces himself to stay still. Don’t run over and take his hands and – beg forgiveness, or demand an apology. How long has it been, my dear?

“This isn’t a safehouse, anymore.” Hubert says, but like in a nightmare, the words come out scratchy and quiet. “Not for you, anyway. Not for your side.”

“Vestra.” Ferdinand says. He is similarly quiet. And changed. Somehow, totally different.

“Aegir.” Hubert says. “Ferdinand, my God.”

Then that’s too much, and he can’t help himself. He wants to cry. It’s dark in here with only the lantern and it casts everything into long, strangly-angled shadows, like at the pictures, and Ferdinand’s aristocratic cheekbones high, and his eyes shining. Were they always that big? It doesn’t matter.

Hubert surges forward like a tide, catching Ferdinand in his arms, holding him there, holding him there, feeling the heat of him.

He’s here, he’s here, he’s here.

He smells terrible, and he’s dirty, pores filthy, sweaty, hair a tangled mess, violet underneath his eyes, skinnier than Hubert remembers him ever being, slouched. There’s a new burn on his hand and on the side of his neck.

He’s here. Those hands on his back – palms flat on his chest, the only person who has ever – gently, they press – those are the same hands, the same.

They break apart and Hubert holds him at elbow’s length, gazing up and down at the hodgepodge uniform; not typical guerrilla wear, but Hubert’s well out of this war, he wouldn’t know. It doesn’t look warm enough.

Ferdinand runs his hands over Hubert’s shoulders and down his sides. His eyes are open and too bright – he looks like he wants to say something, small mouth open, but all he does is gaze, and all Hubert can do is stand, rooted, and return the look.

Ferdinand reaches Hubert’s throat where his shirt is undone, and his breath hitches.

_Not yet,_ Hubert thinks, and closes his eyes tight so he doesn’t have to see Ferdinand’s expression.

He would have had to tell him, sometime.

Ferdinand’s long and graceful fingers pull out the ring at the end of the chain.

“This is _Edelgard’s father’s_ ,” he says. The reproachful tone straight out of the private schools he claims he attended.

That voice!

“You left,” Hubert says. He jerks himself out of the embrace. Turns his back, picks up the stool, the bucket, calms Blaithín down, gets to work. The milk hitting the bucket makes a distinctive noise he’s always liked, but it feels amplified in the shed, now. “Treacherous bastard, you left. I was here by myself for ten months, the girls were _God knows where,_ not a _word_ said to me, and I hadn’t a conversation with anyone at all, the odd word to the fucking – parish priest. And then you write to me and tell me that you’re- throwing in with _De Valera, really?_ And I’m to _move_ _on_? You left us, Ferdinand.”

“I know, I know, I wasn’t- I wasn’t saying anything, Hubert, I’m just a bit surprised. Please let’s not fight.”

“It’s not what you’re imagining. It’s for Edelgard. She deserves to have this land back.” Hubert says, though he can tell by the way Ferdinand’s already tapping his foot against the floor that he doesn’t want to know. Or thinks that he already has all the answers.

“And you love her?”

Hubert doesn’t answer, focussing on the milk and the cow, on the moss growing up the stone walls behind her.

Finally, the silence is too much.

“What sort of a question is that?” He asks, and he hates the tone that tears into his voice there, hates how aggressive it is, hates that Ferdinand really has done nothing to elicit it but ask a stupid question. And who hasn’t done that? “We’re not in Dalkey any more, Von Aegir. You know the answer.”

“For – for fuck’s sake, Hubert.” Ferdinand says. His voice is soft, quiet. Raw. If Hubert were to look around, he knows exactly the face that Ferdinand would be wearing.

I Know, Hubert wants to say, but cannot.

“She’s not well, Ferdinand. Plans change.” Hubert snaps. He stands and gives Blaithín a pat on her back. He draws his nails into his other palm.

“Pro or Anti?”

Another stupid question – when did Ferdinand start being so obnoxiously ignorant?

“She’s Pro-treaty, obviously, Ferdinand, for God’s sake. We won’t align ourselves with that Bishop-loving theocratic piece of shit.” Hubert snaps. He turns back around and is reminded immediately of why he was looking away in the first place. “And don’t lie to yourself. The ra aren’t exactly chomping at the bit for a new socialist republic, either.”

Ferdinand’s face goes red. He can see it even in the dim light cast by the lantern on the floor. But he wouldn’t need any light to know what Ferdinand’s gentle face looks like when blushing. He’s seen it too many times to count.

“Well, then,” he says, “seeing as you have found someone to be- _friends_ with, and you clearly have no desire to see me on your property any longer, I suppose I’ll just _leave_.”

He stands with such restraint. A spring ready to extend, a trigger only waiting to be pulled. Shoulders back. Hubert knows him well. The face, drawn, awaiting a slap or a sharp rebuke. His beautiful hair so ruined, the clothes covered in all sorts – what happened to the Ferdinand who stood in the trenches with all metal gleaming, shorn hair somehow giving the illusion of length and health?

“Please don’t.” Hubert says, his arm reaching out without his say-so. Ferdinand is looking at him- thin, exhausted, Ferdinand, who must know he is losing the war- expecting some sort of elaboration.

Hubert knows what the logical thing to do here is. It’s to send him on his merry way to take his chances. The Army and the police are still swarming around the Big House. Hubert owes Ferdinand nothing. Not after the last time.

He nearly laughs. Of all the impossible things – God help him, he couldn’t throw Ferdinand out for all the money in the world.

He nearly cries.

“Stay,” he says.

Ferdinand covers his eyes with the back of one hand, head bowed as he crosses the floor, and Hubert tangles their fingers together tightly, how graceful they are, even now, and feels Ferdinand’s strong arms around his chest. How long has it been, Jesus. How long.

Because yes, Ferdinand is dirty and a traitor, but how could Hubert care, it’s all past that now. He puts his forehead to Ferdinand’s and presses it there, listening to the breathing, bodies flush against each other- they still fit so well, together, _still,_ after all this time.

Ferdinand tilts his chin up. They’re kissing, and Hubert’s eyes are closed and he is breathing, breathing, breathing in the cold air for the first time in a year and a half.

He moves his ruined hands down to Ferdinand’s waist, and Hubert feels Ferdinand’s long fingers behind his head, on his shoulders, on his back. He hasn’t been touched like this since the last time. Before Sylvain went home, there were a few times - but even then, it was only that he was a body, something where there would have been nothing. Hubert had forgotten what this feels like.

He angles Ferdinand’s jaw, kissing it, kissing along the unburned part of his neck, feeling the warmth against his lips, listening to the sound of Ferdinand’s breathing, coming to a rest, his head where Ferdinand’s threadbare collar meets his skin. He huffs out a laugh.

All that there is is the smell and the light. All that there is is the fact. The word the two of them make, whatever that may be. On the wall. The invention or the uncovering. Some strange new sky has been found in this small shed.

Hubert grips tighter.

The cow, Ferdinand, Hubert’s happy lungs.

  
  


Of all the impossibilities.

  
  


Then.

“Ah shit,” Ferdinand says, and Hubert feels an arm come hard and sudden across his back. He angles himself around to face the door and sees Edelgard standing there, her arms crossed and her hair tied loosely.

“I was wondering what was taking so long.”

No more breath, no more air, no more arm at his back, just the familiar guilt and the dawning realisation that he has, again, hurt her.

“Edelgard.” He still sounds breathless from the kissing, Lord Almighty, why tonight, why now. “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck off, Hubert, I don’t want to hear it. Bring the milk when you’re coming. If you’re coming, that is. I’ll churn it.”

“I said to Bernadetta we’d give her some.” Hubert says, because he’s really good at choosing the wrong thing to focus on in a sentence.

Edelgard looks like she’s about to throttle him like a chicken for saying something so stupid, seeming to inflate a little on her audible inhale.

“Well she can take some of the fucking butter I’m making, so.” She snaps. “Your tea’s on the table, or maybe I’ll give that to Bernadetta, too, will I? Or to this- this – _oh my God, it’s Ferdinand Von Aegir._ ”

With no hesitation or lingering anger, she rushes to him and envelopes them both in a tight embrace. Her smile, broad, delighted with Ferdinand for being so clever as to have found his way back here. Always better at forgiving – at loving – is Edelgard.

She is asking Ferdinand questions about himself and how he is and how everyone else is, how is Ingrid, have you seen Dimitri, did you know that Claude went to London, that Dorothea is singing in Paris, Linhardt and Caspar possibly in Barcelona, possibly in Prague. So good to see you, so good to see you.

But when the questions are over and answered she takes a step back and shakes her head.

“You must come back to visit when you’re done with this foolishness.” She says. “Take the back way out the south field; there are roadblocks on the main way into town.”

Hubert’s heart is a heavy stone and it beats lethargically. Has done since the day that letter arrived.

“I don’t want – can’t – one night. El – Edelgard. Please let him stay.”

She turns her eyes onto him and they’ve always been expressive and he’s made his career out of knowing what they mean. But (he tries not to be too angry about this but it’s a losing battle) if the shoe were on the other foot – if it were Byleth (in fact, _when_ it was Byleth) he would be expected to make the accommodations, and is one night so bad, is asking for one night too much, one last night to be alive in, can he not – after everything he’s given, can he not take one thing, when Ferdinand is so generously giving -

“Well,” She says, when her look doesn’t work and her silence hasn’t changed anything. “Make up your own minds, then. No, don’t mind me. It’s not like I have a say. It’s _your_ house.”

And she leaves, turning on her heel; he can make out some of the noise that she’s making, and he hopes that she’s angry with him, and not sad or betrayed. In fairness she’d be hypocritical, but it’s not as if they’re a couple free of contradictions. Ferdinand still has his arms loosely around him, but he’s holding himself totally still. Hubert lets himself breath. He puts his hands on Ferdinand’s dirty face and leans his forehead in.

Make your own minds up, then.

“Please stay,” He says. “It’s so dark to be throwing yourself out onto that road.”

“You only ever have to ask,” Ferdinand says into Hubert’s shoulder, his voice tremulous.

That’s not true, but Hubert lets it slide as he follows Edelgard up to the house. Better to talk it out now, without gallant Ferdinand trying to justify himself. The fire casts an orange glow into the kitchen as he takes his boots off again, and he’s heavy, so tired all of a sudden. The fiddle case is on the kitchen table and the kettle is heating on the fire, still on the verge of coming to the boil. The floor is, as ever, spotless. Edelgard has always kept a beautiful house.

She’s sitting at the kitchen table, and by the looks of it, the affair hasn’t put her off her food like it has Hubert. But she won’t look at him, so he has to sit down opposite her. The plain food on his plate is almost more than he can bear.

“Eat it. Please, Hubert. We can’t afford you getting sick.” She says. She’s so sad. He used to make her so happy.

He puts the potato into his mouth and chews it.

“He’s so entitled.” She says, a forced lightness in her voice. “Thinks he can just _show up._ ”

“He _is_ from Dalkey.” Hubert says, playing along.

“So he’s told me. Many times.” She says, but the humour dies in her voice. Hubert wonders if she’s ever going to look at him again.

Silence again. A crow caws in the distance. The lowing of the cow.

“You’re being so _stupid,_ ” She tells him, after taking a sip of water. “So _reckless._ An Irregular, here, Jesus! If they catch him you’ll be _shot,_ Hubert. Shot! It’s a different war. You’re not running the world’s saddest safehouse any more.”

Hubert resents the implication that his safehouse was anything less than professional, but he’s not going to get sidetracked now, because Edelgard has a point, and though he can tell her to leave it alone and she probably will, he needs to get her to understand, to see, that Ferdinand Von Aegir is not a simple Irregular. Just so long as he doesn’t mention Eamonn De Valera, he might even be in with a chance.

Michael Collins stares down at them from what was The Sacred Heart’s place, and Hubert concedes that it’s probably not that simple.

“He’s important to me, Edelgard,” He says quietly. “I know you’re right. You know me. You know if it were anyone else, he would be... gone.”

She stares at him, and he tenses, preparing for the blow.

“He’s important to the both of us.” Edelgard says. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. “But he did seem _more_ important to you, yeah. What, you took a leaf out of Linhardt and Caspar’s book? When? What would you have done if I hadn’t walked in?”

“Flames!” Hubert roars. “Fuck _off,_ Edelgard, _Christ!_ You’re one to talk!”

The room is full of it afterwards, after he realises what he’s done, the volume he’s used. He looks towards the kitchen door. There’s nothing there. Nobody’s coming in, his father will not return to – do anything, there’ll be none of that. His chest hurts. He squeezes his nails into his palm. Oh God. It’s all gone so wrong. It’s all gone so utterly wrong.

“I know, Hubert.” She says. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to - I’m just - worried. If the army comes- you know that they’d just shoot you and they’d be pretty quick about it, but me- you’ve heard, what they’re doing to the women.”

He has, and he feels sick to his stomach knowing that he forgot it, even for a moment. He takes another bite of his tea. It isn’t very big tonight; probably they’re saving up for Christmas.

“I can ask him to leave, if you’re really worried.” He says. There.

Again he’s made the choice, chosen her over Ferdinand.

What sort of coward is he.

She turns away from his gaze and shakes her head, eyes trained on the ground.

“No,” she says, picking up the fiddle and leaving her plate on the table. “I overreacted. How could I ever turn him away? But I’m going next-door now, and I don’t want you to follow me.”

The butter still needs churning and the dishes need doing, there’s no leftovers for Ferdinand and the kettle’s still on the fire. Hubert puts his head on the table and reminds himself that there’s a lot more needs doing before he can sleep tonight.

Ferdinand is sitting on the stool far away from Blaithín when Hubert goes to him. He could almost laugh, looking at the expression on his face; Ferdinand’s not sheltered by any stretch of the imagination- the past eight years have put paid to that - but seeing him in his shed, Hubert is reminded that they have different approaches to livestock.

“Come up to the house,” Hubert says, “I’m after heating water, if you want a bath.”

“Oh, Hubert,” Ferdinand says. “That would be perfect.”

Ferdinand has a degree in English and philosophy from UCD - he’s fluent in French, would have easily made it to be some sort of N.C.O if he could ever have just shut up, writes (or used to write) poetry. Looking at him now you wouldn’t be able to tell. When they first met, Hubert had never imagined even making the effort to be civil. There was nothing to be gained from the shiny idealistic ponce from Dalkey, except maybe his cigarette ration. Hubert only been to Dublin a few times in his life before the war, but even he knew the accent by reputation.

In 1915, two years before he signed up to the British Army, Hubert went up to see the county win the Football; Edelgard’s brother Kurt was playing, with that unreal grace he had. Hubert still sees it as one of the highlights of his life, a rare uncomplicated good day, him sitting beside Edelgard and Ilse and Friedrich, and Kurt lobbing the ball over the bar, square between the posts- a beautiful point, and Kurt as light-footed as he ever was when he danced in Ryan’s barn. Kurt could have had the pick of any of the girls around them, if it weren’t for his father and the long entailments on the land. But even then, there was only so much that could do to dissuade the many, many admirers. Not every boy in the county could farm _and_ had an All-Ireland medal _and_ could dance, after all.

At least Edelgard had got her own back. At least they were free of that particular war.

  
  


He leads Ferdinand up the black path, trying not to suffocate on what has gone before them.

  
  


They’ve done this once before; only it was Summer then and they’d been pulling in the harvest all night to get it done. Ferdinand had surprised him by working as hard and as long as anyone else.

They had all flopped down on the ground in the morning bright, when it was all in, and it was one of those good days when even Linhardt had put in a solid bit of work, though he was asleep now.

Hubert had pulled on Ferdinand’s hand.

Ferdinand’s hair had ben long and almost strawberry after the Summer outdoors, the only man with red hair Hubert knew that tanned in the sun, and he was surrounded by the fields of Hubert’s childhood. His face, which had been turned up to the sun, looked to Hubert’s, and the catching of his gaze was a physical thing. Hubert could not stop himself moving forward towards it, until they were out of earshot.

Which didn’t matter because Hubert couldn’t raise his voice much higher than a whisper anyway.

“You said. In your letters. Ferdinand – _Ferdie_.”

“Hubert, I’m sorry, I know, it’s too much, it’s OK-”

“-my Ferdie.”

Hubert had pulled him up to the house and the ringing laughter of Dorothea and Petra accompanied the carrying call of the cuckoo; the screams of the swifts.

-

He lights the lamp again when he goes inside. Ferdinand takes a seat at the table. He doesn’t say anything at all, even though Hubert wishes beyond all else that he would. He busies himself and tries to remember how he used to stand around Ferdinand, how he moved, but his joints are all worn away and he is graceless as he pours the kettle into the tin bathtub. Ferdinand’s not one to demand privacy, but Hubert couldn’t give it to him even if he asked. The bath is in front of the fire and it takes too much to lift it.

There’s so much to do- he’ll start with the dishes, he supposes, and then move on to the butter.

But he can barely stand. He wants to cry but experience tells him he won’t be able to dredge up the tears. ABC – do the chores. Edelgard does the chores every day. Washing-up, and then butter.

It’s no good. No good. He can’t.

He’s terrible at making the fucking butter; not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s women’s work, and he was never trained to do it properly. They can let the milk cool down beforehand, anyway. He’ll do it in the morning, if he has to, but it’s neither god nor money that could make him start it now.

Ferdinand strips off in front of him like he’s done a million times before. Hubert loves that body in all its beautiful permutations. Hubert loves those shoulders and those hips and the hair on those legs and it is now that he realises the grief that swallowed him when he lost it.

“Ferdie,” is all that he can say, and Ferdinand looks at him as he sinks into the bath that is too small for him, and keeps looking until he shoves his head under the water. Hubert doesn’t wait for him to come up for air.

He takes Ferdinand’s uniform before he can protest and carries it outside, his arms full of the smoky smell of it. He goes down to the back shed where they keep the fuel for the bonfires and buries it under old pallets. He comes back up to the house, eyes trained on the sky up far above; it’s cold and it’s clear, and the stars look like cream spilled out across a table. Look long enough and you could forget where you were. But you’d always get a pain in the back of your neck, after a while.

Ferdinand is almost asleep in the hot water when Hubert comes back in. His skin is pink with heat. It’s probably been a while since he’s been this warm. Hubert remembers the vicious red of the sunburn he received that fortnight they all lived here.

He heads up the corridor to get the good soap and new clothes for Ferdinand. He flinches as he reaches the door to the bedroom. Before he can reach for the porcelain handle, he stumbles over something on the ground and has to right himself before he spills lighting oil. A bundle, carefully stacked. Had she - He looks down and then pulls his hand over his face; he’s so tired to be feeling this much. He didn’t think he still could.

He picks up the soap and the neatly folded clothes, and heads back down the hall.

Ferdinand is facing the fire, crouched to fit into the bath, the water running down his back. His eyes are closed and he’s noiseless, delicate wrists curling. Hubert hates to interrupt it; it looks careful, composed, everything Ferdinand is and is not, these days. Hard to think things got even more complicated after the last time he was here; they had been at war, on and off, for five years then and the messy concepts of governing and compromise were already cropping up in conversation. Now it seems that’s all there is, for Hubert: working the frost-hard ground to give him up something, and politics. It’s unbearable, or so he thinks sometimes. Somehow, he wakes up in the morning, and mostly he doesn’t need Byleth to shout at him to get him out of bed.

“Here,” He says, handing Ferdinand the soap. It’s the really nice one, that Edelgard gets delivered from Dublin, with the lavender in it, and Ferdinand takes it, sure in his hands.

“Thanks.”

“We have some soda bread that Edelgard made. I’ll get the last of the old butter and you can have it with some cheddar.”

“Hubert,” Ferdinand says. He’s looking at their hands. Hubert can’t take that. He pulls away as quickly as he can and goes to cut the bread. He cuts generous slices, four of them, and slathers them with the salty butter, puts cheese on two and jam on the other two, gets down one of the side-plates with the blue florals his parents received for a wedding present; fills a cup with the cold water.

“We have some buttermilk, if you’d like?” Hubert asks. He laughs when Ferdinand screws his face up, and sets the plate down on the kitchen table, places the cup carefully down next to it. Hubert carefully does not keep any drink in the house. Ferdinand doesn’t know that, but it’s alright.

“Are you still dependent on tea, or have you kicked the habit?” Hubert asks, and Ferdinand smiles.

“Some things don’t change.” He says.

He’s naked, and Hubert wants to put his hands on that waist, he is beautiful, and he’s still more or less in one piece, and Hubert wants him so badly. He had thought that sensation was dulled. He has tried for a year to dull it.

“Edelgard hates this blend,” Hubert says, “and you know I could never stand it. You’re lucky we have any.”

“Edelgard, your fiancée? Soon to be Mrs Vestra? That Edelgard?” Ferdinand says, and steps out of the bath. The water runs down his long body, and he stands there- how is he so tall, Hubert thinks, but tall is the wrong word- his elegant arms akimbo, his chest strong – Ferdinand stands gorgeous – dries himself off with the towel, and then steps into Hubert’s clothes. Hubert sees his softest shirt, and some old cotton trousers; clothes that might do for pyjamas as well.

He can’t answer. Turns his face away.

“I was going to come back,” Ferdinand says. “We were supposed to go out and see things in other places, Hubert. You said you wanted to.” He dries the soap carefully with the towel and walks sits down at the table to eat the bread. He closes his eyes for a second, and there’s silence in the room.

“My father was alive.” Hubert says. “When I said that, my father had the farm. I wasn’t supposed to be in that will. He was alive.”

Now he’s dead and Hubert is still alive and mostly Hubert thinks that that’s fair. No matter how twisted Hubert is, his father will always be worse.

“I’m sorry.” Ferdinand says. He never met Edelgard’s siblings; he doesn’t know what it meant when they died. “I really am, my darling, but I fail to see how that leads you to getting married.”

How dense can you be? You mention land reform and Ferdinand’s all over it. Talk about spraying potatoes and he’s talking of the British roots of famines past and present. A casual mention of the wheat yields leads on to rants about the price of flour; sugar-beet introduces the sad topic of Caribbean sugar cane plantations. But then he’ll go and say something like he’s just said, say something so stupid and clueless and nearly right.

“The land. Do you know how many families own their own land around here, Ferdinand? People would kill for it. It’s rightfully Edelgard’s. What choice do I have? This is what I have, and this is how I can give it to her.”

“That’s such fucking petit-bourgeois thinking. I thought of all people, Hubert Vestra would be beyond that.” Ferdinand snaps, and then immediately shakes his head, shadows strange in the low light. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, that was really rude.”

“This is family,” Hubert tries to explain, attacking a stubborn stain on a mug. “This is what I have to do. I don’t hate the labour, Ferdinand; it’s not what I wanted, but I can survive this way.”

“You said you were going to go to New York.” Ferdinand says. “Nothing about _family_ there.”

“Circumstances changed, Ferdinand,” Hubert says. “We don’t all get a _choice_ in these things. I’m not you. I can’t just _turn up_ places and get fed.”

“That’s for sure. You’re certainly not me. I wouldn’t have given everything up to marry some girl that I didn’t love just to do work I hate, on land I’m chained to-”

“Edelgard could have killed you,” Hubert says, fighting an absurd urge to point at the portrait of Collins on the wall. “ _Nobody_ would have blamed her. If you’re going to be like this, take her name out of your mouth. You don’t have a notion of what you’re talking about.”

Hubert is trying to explain. He doesn’t know what, exactly, he’s explaining, which doesn’t help matters, and Ferdinand’s not _getting_ it.

“It’s just so small, here.” Ferdinand says. “You stay here and never learn that they’re building a new world in Moscow, and by the time the revolution makes it this far it’d probably even take _you_ by surprise.”

Hubert forces the harsh words he wants to say about Ferdinand’s ideas of what the Revolution consists of back down his throat and shakes his head instead.

“We know what’s happening in Russia, Ferdinand, we’re not stupid. We had a general strike at Pierce’s in ’11, if you remember. Two years before your Big Jim.”

“Oh yes,” Ferdinand says. “Sorry, that was elitist of me. I do apologise.”

Impossible to know when he’s being serious, sometimes. Hubert stacks the plates to drain them.

“They don’t want a revolution, here, Ferdinand.” He says.

“They just need some economics lessons,” He says, with a flick of his wrist, as if everyone finishing 7th class was a given; as if everyone around here could read, as if it were easy to come by books. Sometimes it’s difficult to even find the national newspaper.

“Without Religion? They’d go crazy without the priest on Sunday.” Hubert says. “They’d kill anyone suggesting they get rid of it. You don’t understand what it’s like down here. It’s land ownership and Mass and that’s it.”

“That’ll change. And divorce will be legal. You can share your land. You and Edelgard can share the work of the farm-”

“We _already_ share the work of the farm.”

“And your children can go to any university they choose, even Trinity College. They could be Taoiseach, if they wanted.”

“Ferdinand,” Hubert says, looking around at the kitchen. He finishes drying the cutlery and puts it into the drawer, and stands there with his hands finally empty. “I’m so sorry I didn’t wait for you. I should have. I’m sorry.”

Ferdinand lets his chin drop down to his chest and covers his eyes with his hand.

How the fuck has Hubert managed to live this long without this feeling in his chest, the warmth, the love, the fear that Ferdinand sends up his spine, and the joy; it’s better than the spirits ever were; it’s better than the best adrenaline highs armies from Germany and England could offer. His lungs are tight, but he never wants them to loosen. His bones are relaxed, and they may not ever be as rigid again.

“What _happened,_ Hubert.” Ferdinand asks, tears sparkling in his pre-Raphaelite eyes. “God, what happened to you? Where did you go?”

Hubert goes to his kitchen table and sees that Ferdinand has drunk the water and the tea, has eaten the bread, even the crusts, has left everything very neatly, is indeed sitting very neatly. He pulls him up into an embrace, again, safer than before. Ferdinand is pliant now, his touch very soft. His hair needs cutting, he should shave, they hold each other tightly. Remember how we were? I loved you _so much._

“Come to bed.” Hubert says. His voice feels weak, teetering. “Come to my room. Come on, love.”

Ferdinand lies down as soon as he sees the bed, lying on top of the old quilt Hubert’s mother made. His limbs are all crooked, no sense to them, though they’re all long and strong and a bit brutal. There’s an edge, a bit of a blade to the way Ferdinand carries himself. Kurt never met him. Hubert wonders how it would have gone.

“I had more than this in mind when I broke into your shed.” He says quietly.

“I know you did,” Hubert says.

“I’m sorry,” Ferdinand says.

Hubert lies down next to him, holding himself in, facing Ferdinand’s drawn weathered face. He feels a bubble of relief float up to his throat, bursting into a small stupid smile, and reaches his arms around Ferdinand, bringing them close together, the warmth, and Ferdinand smelling of lavender soap, but differently to how Edelgard smells of it. He breathes in the fabric of his own shirt.

There’s that anticipation. That feeling. That love.

“Just can’t seem to ever get this right.” Ferdinand says. It’s dark now, properly, and there’s something floating free that is usually in a tight box in Hubert’s chest. “But when the revolution comes, Hubert, things are going to be so different. You’ll see. I’ll kiss you in the middle of Stephen’s Green and no-one’ll blink.”

“It might not happen for us,” Hubert says, because he can’t bear the hope in Ferdinand’s voice.

“But it will happen. Whatever – went wrong for you, Hubert, you must believe that.” Ferdinand says.

Hubert reaches his hand over to caress Ferdinand’s face, dragging his fingers down over his neck, further to where the collar ends.

“Come here,” he whispers, and Ferdinand – dear Ferdinand – does.

  
  


Hubert wakes up too early, as he usually does, but lies awake in his warm bed instead of starting the day. He counts Ferdinand’s easy breaths until he loses the number, and then he starts again. The heaviness in his head doesn’t arrive. He expects it to, as the warmth of the sheets surrounds him, but it never does.

Eventually he can’t justify the lying abed any longer – the last time he’ll ever get out of a bed that Ferdinand is sleeping in, but he pushes the sharp wedge of grief off to the side – he gets up quietly and dresses himself, looking at Ferdinand’s brittle red hair as he does so, the bare skin of his face and shoulders.

He churns the butter, which takes an absolute age. The songs Edelgard hums under her breath turn out to be more helpful than he’d assumed. He’s late starting and now even later because of how long this is taking. But in the end, there’s the butter and there’s the butter milk, in the jug and on the plate, and he’s proud of it, even if he doesn’t know how to shape it. He leaves it on the table and hopes that Edelgard will take pity on him.

Ferdinand is still asleep.

Edelgard comes in the door as the sun rises and nods clearly at him, and the clean kitchen, and laughs at the butter. Her presence here, since the war, has always been strange, and not in the way the neighbours mean. This is her kitchen. Hubert knew her here when he was a small child. Even after everything was taken from her, this was her kitchen. And here he stands, trespassing, the legal owner of her life.

It isn’t right.

She wipes her hands on her apron before bending down to pick up the water bucket, leaving the door open as she goes to the pump. She doesn’t say anything, as she goes.

Still friends. Thank God, still friends.

Ferdinand is still asleep. Hubert goes to milk Blaithín and apologise for last night. He doesn’t check if the uniform’s still in the shed. Instead he brings the milk up and leaves it in the cold room; cuts a large slice of bread and butters it, eats it leaning against the counter, waits for Edelgard to come back in.

“Byleth is coming around for dinner today,” she says. “Hubert, I’m sorry. I think you should tell Ferdinand to stay.”

He nods his understanding, still leaning, and lets Edelgard frown and swat him away from the thing she wants to reach. She looks well-rested. He tells her so. It’s Christmas Eve, and clear as a bell.

The sun is up enough now to start on the wall dividing the South field from the West field. It’s hard work, all the same, this analysing and assessing damage caused, topping up with hard stones and distributing balance and choosing the right rock for the right area. He’s reminded of French trenches, of trying to fortify the fundamentally unstable.

There should be several Hresvelgs arriving for Christmas today, and the fact that there aren’t hurts so much he can barely breath, even still. But mostly, now, he finds that carrying their burden is easier than it was. There are days when he straightens up and is ready to head down to the old tenant’s cottage to help his mother with the laundry, or he thinks the shadow crossing his eyes is Kurt come to ask him for a cigarette.

The wall is being built. He is building the wall. It takes hours. And then it’s done.

When he heads back up to the house, back aching and legs a little weak, he hears someone laughing and someone else singing. Ferdinand is awake. Before he can speed up to get to the house, Ferdinand opens the back door and leans salaciously against the frame, Edelgard’s loud laugh clear from behind him. It looks like she’s been at him with a shears; his red hair is tufty and short.

Hubert never said she was talented in _all_ areas, but he supposes it needed to be done. Ferdinand has shaved, as well, and dressed in Hubert’s clothes (his good clothes, he notes with the frustration/fondness that only Ferdinand inspires to this extent).

He kisses Hubert hard and hot on the lips, in front of God, in front of the land, in front of Edelgard, and Hubert thinks he’ll take this over his theoretical children becoming Taoiseach or studying in Trinity College.

“Byleth,” he says, when Hubert has time to catch his breath, “has come up with the most wonderful plan. And it doesn’t involve marriage. Or killing you. You know she knows quite a bit about property law?”

“Oh?” Hubert says. He notices belatedly that Ferdinand has stolen his cap.

“We’ll talk more about it later,” Ferdinand says. “I think we might need to make our own decisions first. Hm?”

Hubert nods, slowly, trying to fit this all in.

“While you were out being the tough man of the farm, Edelgard was showing me how to make stew. Come and eat!”

  
  


Hubert grew up on this farm. The land, then, was not his, but the Hresvelgs’, with their four strong sons and the numerous daughters. They were an unlucky family. It wasn’t unusual really to lose a child to illness. Farms were unsafe places.

Kurt and Isle were the last to go; the ‘flu in 1918 killed them both, and the grief turned Edelgard’s hair white.

By then, they had learned what Hubert’s father had been doing, how the land had been pulled through loophole after loophole, how the various accidents on the Hresvelg farm were not perhaps the result of bad luck. There had been no money, then, after a war, for Edelgard to buy the farm back. There is still no money to buy the farm back.

This farm is Edelgard’s and she deserves it, and he will do everything in his power to give it back to her. They cut their own path during the war. They won. They got what they needed. It’s time now for her to get what she wants.

  
  


“To make a long story short, it’s all _complete_ horseshit,” Byleth says, waving copies of a will or a contract around over her head. She’s been so busy talking that her stew is, uncharacteristically, untouched beside her. “None of this is in any way legal. I asked my solicitor friend in town to take a look when dad was being held by the guards last month.”

Ferdinand admits, while Hubert is busy administering to his neck, that perhaps the whole civil war thing is a bit played out, and that in fact he’s rather fed up of this awful little country anyway.

“If I – _ooh,_ come now, Hubert, sensibility for one second, if you will – if I asked you to come away from here, would you go?”

Later on, Hubert will wonder at the perfect certainty that supplied his answer.

You only had to ask. You only ever have to ask. Just ask. 

His father may as well have salted the earth. This place could never be home to him, now.

  
  


They walk to Midnight Mass together, him and Edelgard, her holding his hand tightly as they go. Ferdinand waits at home, probably dozing, probably dreamy and pliant, the way Hubert rarely ever gets to see him.

Edelgard smiles widely at Bernadetta when they see her, a smile Hubert thinks is, at last, genuine, which is its own miracle, and he’s grateful. And then mass, and her voice is strong as she sings her obscure praises, and she gazes over the pew at Byleth, and their faces are full when they look at each other. Hubert prays along with the rest.

He stands alone in the fields that night, looking out towards where the islands are.

He thinks about the baby born and the new world that apparently came, and the new world Ferdinand is seeing, and the new country that he will, against all odds, eventually meet.

Ever since the trenches it has been very difficult for Hubert to conceive of what a future looks like, even in the grand strokes. For it to remain the same seems unbearable, but changing something, too, has ceased to really be an option. He has been a tool, he supposes, of the land.

The wheat needs sowing and the chickens will need replacing, the slates on the roof need re-doing and the gorse should be cut back. The granary needs re-flooring, there’s socks needing darning. Kurt’s football should be greased up in case it cracks. And Hubert doesn’t have to do any of it.

His suitcase has been tossed in an inauspicious corner of his room.

And as the evenings begin to stretch, the snowdrops will rise up out of the frost-hard ground, and there’ll be country fairs and county games to go to, and the farm will keep on ticking over. This war will end. There will be another one. There will be wars on this island forever, he thinks; some person some time must have cursed them all to it. But he finds, it’s worth it, it’s worth it to hear your breath coming peaceful like this, feel the air in between your hands, and the little roads, and the little rivers. There’s a holly tree near here that’s older than the concept of Ireland.

In the summer, the swallows come home to the nests they leave on the cattle shed; he won’t be here to see it, but he finds himself glad for them, nonetheless.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is [@meryton-etc](https://meryton-etc.tumblr.com/). I'd love to chat about FE3H if anyone would like to hmu!
> 
> I haven't been this nervous about posting smth in a while, please let me know what you thought!


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